5 Quotes by Teffi

She watched him adoringly, and brightly, and exultantly—in the way you can watch only when you are wearing a new hat, a hat with a bluebird of happiness on the brim.

It’s sad to wander about the graveyard of my tired memory, where all hurts have been forgiven, where every sin has been more that atoned for, every riddle unriddled and twilight quietly cloaks the crosses, now no longer upright, of graves I once wept over.

It was enough to make you think fondly of those early days, of that “springtime” of the revolution when your teeth would be chattering from fear, when you froze every time you heard a passing truck – would it stop at the gate or would it drive on by? – when your heart would lurch nauseatingly at the sound of rifle butts thudding against the door. Now we were only too used to it all. Everything had become boring, boring to the point of revulsion. It was all just coarse, dirty, and stupid.

He’s ambitious – even excessively ambitious. He wants to become a provocateur, but he doesn’t know a single revolutionary song.

I was afraid of maddened faces, of lanterns being shone in my eyes, of blind mindless rage. I was afraid of cold, of hunger, of darkness, of rifle butts banging on parquet floors. I was afraid of screams, of weeping, of gunshots, of the deaths of others. I was tired of it all. I wanted no more of it. I had had enough.